WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: Deceptions about Deception

National Review, July 14, 2003

Has anyone ever attempted to rewrite history so quickly? Before history itself had even been written? With shooting still going on in Iraq, the "Bush lied" forces-those, mostly on the left, who claim the administration deceived the country into war-have a new guiding document. In "The First Casualty," New Republic writers John Judis and Spencer Ackerman contend that President Bush "engaged in a pattern of deception" about Iraq, hyping the threat of weapons of mass destruction and "depriv[ing] Congress of its ability to make an informed decision about whether or not to take the country to war." Already, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has hailed the article as "magisterial"-a sure sign that it will have only a glancing relationship with the facts.

And indeed, try as they might, Judis and Ackerman just can't make the case. For starters, they concede that the U.S. "may yet discover the chemical and biological weapons that various governments and the United Nations have long believed Iraq possessed." Well, that would do away with much of their case, wouldn't it? And isn't the belief itself evidence that the war was not based on a deception? Not at all, say Judis and Ackerman, because American forces are "unlikely to find, as the Bush administration had repeatedly predicted, a reconstituted nuclear weapons program or evidence of joint exercises with al-Qaeda- the two most compelling security arguments for the war." In a neat rhetorical turn, Judis and Ackerman select two elements of the administration's broad case against Iraq, declare them to be the "most compelling," and then find them wanting.

But to do so, they have to ignore perhaps the administration's strongest case for war, Colin Powell's February 5 presentation to the United Nations. Powell's speech was far-ranging, covering all varieties of weapons of mass destruction. Devoting about 900 words of a 10,000- word presentation to nuclear weapons, his discussion of Saddam's nuclear ambitions was restrained and sensible, concluding, based on available evidence, that Saddam was "determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb." There is simply no doubt that that was true. As for Judis and Ackerman's contention that the administration claimed Iraq and al-Qaeda were conducting "joint exercises," you'll search Powell's speech in vain for the term, or anything like it. Instead, Powell spoke of a potential "nexus" between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and had the evidence to support it.

After the speech, even the anti-war Times editorialized, "Mr. Powell's presentation was all the more convincing because he dispensed with apocalyptic invocations of a struggle of good and evil and focused on shaping a sober, factual case against Mr. Hussein's regime. It may not have produced a 'smoking gun,' but it left little question that Mr. Hussein had tried hard to conceal one." While we thought the gun Powell produced was indeed smoking, it is notable that even the Times was impressed by the evidence.

And who else was impressed? Why, The New Republic. Shortly after Powell's speech, an article in the magazine's online edition declared the presentation "devastating." The article was written by one Spencer Ackerman, who is now co-author of the new "Bush lied" manifesto. The New Republic is not just rewriting history; it's rewriting itself.